Freelancer: Civilian CTE-3000 Falcon Heavy Fighter

“As the name attests, this ship is formidable and is well-deserving of the reputation that it enjoys. With a balanced combination of refined offensive and defensive technologies, the Falcon delivers an astonishing amount of potential firepower to potential adversaries quickly and efficiently.”

The CTE-3000 “Falcon” is an excellent heavy fighter from the 2003 game “Freelancer.” Sleek and effective, it evolves on the design of the “Hawk” and packs significantly more firepower. I love the way it looks and this was a request by a user on the Freelancer subreddit - I had to get it printed. 

The model was extracted from the game using LancerEdit and scaled to the same scale as my Liberty BDR-337 Heavy Fighter to use the same hardpoints. These old models are significantly challenging to print, with sharp angles that resist supports like they're coated in butter - so much slicing, dicing and orienting later, I finally have something that is consistently printable. I had to alter the geometry of the wings slightly to print flat on the bed without an extra hour's worth of supports, but side-by-side with the game's art, it is absolutely indistinguishable. 

Print Options - V1 2/16/26

Two profiles are included, both multi-color. If you want to print in single-color, just merge all the filament options. The single-color print took 1h51m on my P1S. If you have an H2C, I suggest the 6-color version as it prints in just over 15 hours with minimal waste - only nozzle priming. Unlike the Defender, I did not put a one-piece profile together because I could not get it to print cleanly, no matter how I oriented it. The wings are just too thin and sharp. This is designed to print with a 0.4mm nozzle and has multiple tweaked settings, mostly regarding support, to print smoothly and consistently with enough strength in the thin wings and tail to be able to be handled without immediately breaking. 

Supports: No additional supports should be needed. I did tweak supports extensively for good release and as good of a surface finish as I could achieve. 

Graphics: All the coloration is painted on. The model geometry supports this nicely if you need to make tweaks. Paint by triangle and you should be able to achieve a game-accurate texture pattern. 

Tolerances: The Dowel connectors have a tolerance of 0.2mm. Feel free to adjust these to your printer's tolerances. 

Brim: The wings require a brim, in my experience, to stay adhered to the print bed across the duration of the job. 

Assembly

Assembly is straightforward. The wings are attached to the sides using alignment pegs which need to be glued in. I recommend superglue gel. Once you get them on, I have intentionally left a tiny bit of wing root on the fuselage to aid in fine alignment - just line up the leading and trailing edges with these small shelves. Finally, glue on any hardpoints that you want to use! 

More Freelancer Prints: 

Liberty BDR-337 “Defender” Heavy Fighter: 

Hardpoints Collection: